The Diary of Lady Murasaki Read online

  THE DIARY OF LADY MURASAKI

  MURASAKI SHIKIBU was born in Japan c. 973, during the Heian period (794–1192), when the head of the major faction of the Fujiwara clan, Michinaga, held sway over the imperial court. Her father was a minor official, who never became more than a provincial governor, and whose chief claim to fame must be his role in the education of his remarkable daughter. Apart from what she reveals in her diary, we know little of her life. She married around the turn of the century, had one daughter and was widowed soon after. During the next four or five years Murasaki seems to have begun writing The Tale of Genji, the work of fiction that was to bring her fame. It is probable that chapters were read at court and came to the notice of Michinaga, who decided that she would be an excellent addition to the entourage of his daughter, Shōshi (or Akiko), the young emperor’s first consort. She entered the service of Shōshi in 1006. Her diary describes the details of court life, the birth of a prince, and contains some tart observations on her contemporaries, but the record as we have it today does not go beyond 1010. Lady Murasaki is best known as the author of the Genji, a long prose narrative of astonishing complexity and sophistication, which is today recognized as one of the masterpieces of Japanese literature. It is not known exactly how long she lived, but she probably died at some time between 1014 and 1025.

  RICHARD BOWRING was educated at Downing College, Cambridge, from where he gained his PhD in 1973. He subsequently taught at Monash, Columbia and Princeton, returning to Cambridge in 1985 as Professor of Japanese. He has written a number of books including Mori Ōgai and the Modernization of Japanese Culture (1979) and An Introduction to Modern Japanese (2 volumes; 1992), and he was co-editor of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan (1993). His primary research is now in the field of Japanese Buddhism.

  THE DIARY OF LADY MURASAKI

  Translated and introduced by

  RICHARD BOWRING

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published 1996

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  Copyright © Richard Bowring

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the translator and editor

  has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

  to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

  re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s

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  EISBN: 978–0–141–90765–9

  For Marian Ury – in memoriam

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  A NOTE ON JAPANESE NAMES AND DATES

  INTRODUCTION

  Cultural background

  The author

  The diary

  THE DIARY OF LADY MURASAKI

  APPENDIX 1: GROUND-PLANS AND MAP

  APPENDIX 2: ADDITIONAL SOURCES

  A GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

  PREFACE

  This book is a re-edited and revised version of the author’s earlier work Murasaki Shikibu: Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), which has been out of print for some years. The revision has involved a number of major changes, not the least of which has been the decision to omit the collection of poetry (Murasaki Shikibu shū). Such is the nature of these short, largely conventional, poems that their inclusion in a book destined for a wide audience would probably end in puzzlement rather than pleasure or enlightenment, even if the task were attempted by a more able translator of poetry than myself. Annotations that dealt with specialized textual problems have also been omitted. A more general set of introductory essays has been supplied, although it is tempting just to guide the reader in the direction of Ivan Morris’s The World of the Shining Prince (Kōdansha International, 1994), which covers a lot more ground with a good deal more wit and style. The translation of the diary itself has been extensively revised in the light of comments by reviewers of the earlier book, further study of recent Japanese commentaries, and a reading of the French translation by René Sieffert, which was a belated discovery. I cannot speak for its style, which seems consciously archaic, but it is a work of impeccable and impressive accuracy. For the footnotes I make no apology. They are an absolute necessity when translating a work of this nature, which was written with the unstated assumption that the reader would already have extensive background knowledge of the culture and the times.

  A NOTE ON JAPANESE NAMES AND DATES

  Names

  All Japanese names in this book are presented in conventional Japanese order: family, or clan, name first (for example, Fujiwara) and personal name second (for example, Michinaga). In the period concerned, it was the custom to insert the particle no, signifying ‘of’, between the two names. I have retained its use, although this custom seems to have died out after about 1200.

  Readers will find that men, in particular, are identified in the translation sometimes by title, sometimes by name and sometimes by both. In the original Japanese one finds only titles, and quite often the same person is identified by different titles in different places, even in the course of what is a very short narrative. Occasionally it is clear why one title has been used in preference to another in a particular context, but this is not always the case. Where possible, I have tried to retain the use of titles, but personal names have been added where necessary. The translation of titles, with very few exceptions, follows those set out in the detailed appendices to William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980).

  The only women to be given personal names in the diary are servants. Ladies-in-waiting are usually identified by a combination of rank, or position, with a name derived from the title or land-holding of a near male relative. This was necessary because a number of women might hold a specific title, hence they needed an additional label. I have followed convention and by and large simply transliterated rather than translated these names. Ben no Naishi, for example, was a handmaid (naishi), whose father or husband held (or had held) the rank of Controller (ben) in the Council of State. The term ‘Lady’ has been used freely and subsumes a number of distinct but ill-understood female titles. The author’s real name (if such a concept would have meant anything to her) is unknown. ‘Lady Murasaki’ translates, or rather stands for, Murasaki Shikibu. This is a combination of a nickname – Murasaki – which refers to the main female character in her major fiction Genji monogatari (‘The Tale of Genji’), and the name of a ministry – Shikibu or ‘Ministry of Ceremonial’ – in which her father had once held a post.

  Dates

  The Western (Julian) calendar and the Japanese calendar do not coincide, with the result that conversion of dates is no easy matter. The Japanese had days and months, as one might expect from a lunar calendar, but years were calculated in ‘eras’, and a change of era name might be precipitated by anything from an epidemic to an omen. Era names were not linked to emperors’ reigns until the modern period.
The convention followed here is: a date written Kankō 5 (1008).7.16 signifies the sixteenth day of the seventh month of the year Kankō 5. This equates to 20 August 1008 in the Julian calendar, but since in this context it is not usually relevant to know the precise Western equivalent, most dates have been left unconverted except for the guide as to the year in question, which appears in brackets. The reader should be aware, however, that although this system works fairly well for most of the calendar year in question, it does not work if the date falls near the beginning or the end of the year, when the rule-of-thumb equation fails. Kankō 3, for example, is usually marked as 1006, but Kankō 3.12.29, when we think Murasaki first entered court service, was actually 20 January, 1007. To translate it as such, however, would only confuse matters, because to Murasaki herself it represented the penultimate day of the year.

  INTRODUCTION

  Cultural Background

  GENERAL

  Lady Murasaki, or Murasaki Shikibu as she is known in Japanese, lived at the height of the Heian Period (794–1192), a long era of relative peace and stability, which takes its name from the capital, Heian-kyō (‘Capital of Peace and Tranquillity’), the ancestor of what is now the city of Kyōto. Japan was emerging from a period of intense absorption of Chinese material and written culture, during which alien concepts such as the centralization of power, the role of bureaucracy, and the mysteries of Buddhist philosophy were first imported and then gradually naturalized. The court decided as early as 894 to abandon the practice of sending official embassies to China, partly because the T’ang dynasty was already in terminal decline and partly because a willing ambassador could not be found. The last Korean goodwill mission visited Japan in 928. By the time of Murasaki’s birth in c. 973, therefore, Japan had turned in upon itself. What had been imported had by this stage been well digested and we can begin to see the main outlines of subsequent Japanese culture emerging. Murasaki’s own monumental work, the Genji monogatari (‘Tale of Genji’) was, therefore, the product of a native culture, enriched by Chinese example, finding a truly sophisticated form of self-expression for the first time. China was, of course, to remain as a kind of touchstone, but it was geographically and psychologically remote enough to allow the unhampered growth of an indigenous tradition.

  This shift away from things Chinese occurred not only in literature and religion but also in politics and government. Early attempts to impose a Chinese-style bureaucracy never really succeeded in supplanting native habits, and power remained very much a matter of heredity. At court, the Emperor stood at the spiritual centre, but he was politically impotent and was usually under the influence of whichever aristocratic family happened to be in a position to force decisions. The Emperor’s daily existence was largely involved with ritual, and his links to the actual machinery of government were extremely tenuous. He was, in any case, often too young and inexperienced to be able to have a mind of his own. The coveted post in the system was that of Regent, the degree of power being directly related to the proximity of Regent to Emperor as measured through family ties. It is only to be expected then that ‘marriage politics’ should have emerged as a major technique whereby power was gained and then maintained.

  In Murasaki’s day the court was dominated by one clan, the Fujiwara, and in particular by one branch, the Northern Branch, and by one man, Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027). His chief asset was a carefully designed network of marriage ties, which he manipulated to great effect. He was also lucky in matters of births and deaths. Such a position of prominence was only achieved as the result of much internecine strife between various family factions vying for power throughout the late tenth century. Rivalry within the Fujiwara clan itself came to a head in 969, when the major remaining threat from a different clan, Minamoto no Takaakira (914–82), was finally removed from the scene on a trumped-up charge of conspiracy. From that time on there ensued a series of intrigues that set brother against brother, nephew against uncle, and that led to the early demise of three emperors, Reizei, En’yū and Kazan. A typical example is that of Kazan (r. 984–6), who was sixteen at the time of his accession. Under strong pressure from Fujiwara no Kaneie, who wanted to put his grandson, later Emperor Ichijō, on the throne, he was eventually tricked into taking orders and thus relinquishing authority. Ichijō (r. 986–1011), who reigned during the time of most interest to us in the present context, came to the throne at the age of six and was naturally dominated by his grandfather. Kaneie had three sons, Michitaka (953–95), Michikane (961—95), and Michinaga (966–1027). When Kaneie died in 990, he was initially replaced by Michitaka, who immediately proceeded to consolidate his position by making his daughter, Teishi, Imperial Consort and promoting his son Korechika (973–1010) by leaps and bounds in the next few years. But Michitaka died five years later and Michikane followed soon after in an epidemic. Michinaga was now left the job of consolidating his position, and he immediately came into direct conflict with Korechika. It was mainly due to the influence of Michinaga’s sister Senshi, Ichijō’s mother, that the young Emperor was ‘persuaded’ to favour his uncle. Only a year later, by a mixture of luck and guile, Michinaga managed to put an end to Korechika’s hopes.

  The story goes that Korechika, under the impression that retired Emperor Kazan was competing with him for the favours of a certain lady, surprised Kazan one night and started a scuffle in which the retired Emperor was actually winged by an arrow. Whether or not the whole scene had been engineered by Michinaga we do not know, but it provided him with the excuse he needed. Combined with an accusation that Korechika had been trying to place a curse on his uncle, it was enough to have him banished from the court for several months, and from this time on Michinaga proved virtually unassailable. In 999 he introduced his ten-year-old daughter Shōshi (988–1074) to court as Imperial Consort, and she quickly became promoted to Second Empress or Chūgū.

  In the twelfth month of 1000, Teishi, who had been under considerable pressure since the disgrace of her brother Korechika, died in childbirth, and Shōshi’s position became secure. It was into her entourage that Murasaki, from a different and much less important branch of the Fujiwara, was to be introduced as a kind of companion-cumtutor. As we can tell from her diary and Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (‘Pillow Book’), the women’s quarters in the Palace were organized around major consorts, and the quality of the cultural ‘salon’ that each woman could attract was a major factor in their constant rivalry. The real moment of success for Michinaga came when in 1008 Shōshi gave birth to a son, Prince Atsuhira (1008–36). This meant that if all went well Michinaga would be in full control of the next generation. This birth is the main event that Murasaki chronicles in such detail in her diary, hardly surprising in view of the supreme importance of the birth for the faction with which she now found herself involved. It was also a relief to Michinaga, given that the omens had not been very propitious: Shōshi seems to have taken a full nine years to become pregnant.

  Michinaga continued to gain influence throughout his career. In the end he could count himself as brother-in-law to two emperors (En’yū and Reizei), uncle to one (Sanjō), uncle and father-in-law to another (Ichijō), and grandfather to two more (Goichijō and Gosuzaku). There is evidence, however, that at this early stage Korechika continued to be a thorn in the flesh, for another scandal erupted in the first month of 1009 when it was ‘discovered’ that Korechika had arranged for a curse to be laid on Shōshi and the new prince. Korechika was banned from the court again, this time for six months.

  It should be clear that women had an important role to play in the politics of the time. They were vital pawns, ‘borrowed wombs’ as the saying went, and, depending on their strength of character, might wield considerable influence. We know that they had certain rights, income and property that mark them off as being unusually privileged in comparison to women in later ages. Michinaga’s mother, for instance, seems to have been a power to be reckoned with, and his main wife Rinshi owned the Tsuchimikado mansion, where he sp
ent so much of his time and which serves as the backdrop for most of the events in Murasaki’s diary.

  It is much more difficult, however, to determine the true position of women in society at large. The testimony we have from the literature of the period, much of it written by women of a lesser class, draws a picture of women subject to the usual depredations of their menfolk, prey to the torments of jealousy, and condemned to live most of their sedentary lives hidden behind a wall of screens and blinds. Seldom were they known by their own names; they existed rather in the shadow of titles held by brothers and fathers, borrowed labels. Secondary wives of major figures probably had the worst position, as we can tell from a reading of the Kagerō nikki (‘Gossamer Years’). The author of this particular autobiographical work was trapped at home, at the mercy of her husband’s slightest whim; he had official business and other love affairs to keep him busy. For women like this there were only two escapes – to enter service at court, or to seek solace in

  Main members of the Fujiwara clan

  [Names mentioned in the diary are in italics]

  religion. Murasaki seems to have decided on the first option, which probably came in the form of a request to join Shōshi’s entourage; but even so, her diary tells us that life at court was not all it was cracked up to be. Amid a certain magnificence, she also found drunkenness, frivolity, back-biting, and a general sense of life being wasted. We should not, of course, be surprised by any of this. What is truly remarkable is that a number of court women were able to write about their situation in such a fashion that their predicament speaks directly to us today, across barriers of time and place. It is perhaps salutary to remind ourselves that as Murasaki was writing in such exquisite detail of court ceremonial on the one hand and personal feelings on the other, we in England had still full sixty years to go to the Norman Conquest.